6.05.2012

Because of Earth's position in the solar system, obviously only
Mercury and Venus can
undergo the unique alignment that occurred this afternoon and evening, making the Venus transit something worth pulling out the camera to record.
Here's my visual take on the twice-in-our-lifetime Venus transit, the rare occurrence of when a planet crosses between Earth and the sun:

And my editorial take on the transit: with as infrequently as I clean my 5DII sensor, a small black spec on the sun is definitely nothing new -- I see it way more often than I'd like... So after an hour of driving around looking for the right place to shoot the setting sun, I've decided it was certainly nothing worth writing home about. Nothing worth burning my retinas over. Oh well. At least I can say I "saw" it (I played it safe and never looked directly into the sun). Oh... and in case you want to photograph the next Venus transit (which will happen again in a mere 105 years), stack a bunch of filters and grab your longest lens.Equipment used: 200mm f/4, 1.4 Canon Extender, one ND2 filter, one ND4 filter, and one Circular Polarizing filter